343
submitted 6 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

Misinformation campaigns increasingly target the cavity-fighting mineral, prompting communities to reverse mandates. Dentists are enraged. Parents are caught in the middle.

The culture wars have a new target: your teeth. 

Communities across the U.S. are ending public water fluoridation programs, often spurred by groups that insist that people should decide whether they want the mineral — long proven to fight cavities — added to their water supplies. 

The push to flush it from water systems seems to be increasingly fueled by pandemic-related mistrust of government oversteps and misleading claims, experts say, that fluoride is harmful.

The anti-fluoridation movement gained steam with Covid,” said Dr. Meg Lochary, a pediatric dentist in Union County, North Carolina. “We’ve seen an increase of people who either don’t want fluoride or are skeptical about it.”

There should be no question about the dental benefits of fluoride, Lochary and other experts say. Major public health groups, including the American Dental Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, support the use of fluoridated water. All cite studies that show it reduces tooth decay by 25%.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] undercrust@lemmy.ca 36 points 6 months ago

If the stupid motherfucker brushes his teeth twice daily, he's already introducing loads more fluoride to his body than any of the trace amounts they add into the public water system, which is still standards of deviation less than anything that would introduce fluorosis of childrens' teeth (since that's not possible for adults with developed teeth), let alone get to a level of toxicity for an adult.

Now, if he regularly consumes full tubes of toothpaste as a health supplement, then maybe that's a reason to be concerned about fluoride.

[-] glimse@lemmy.world 18 points 6 months ago

All right settle down, he's not a stupid motherfucker. He isn't advocating to remove it from tap water, he was just saying why HE doesn't drink tap. He didn't try to pursuade me.

Perhaps he's misguided on that but he is not the person you're probably picturing.

My friend is a doctor and he also doesn't drink tap but for him it's the other contaminates, not flouride

[-] prole@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 months ago

As someone who works directly with water treatment systems, at best he's an ignorant motherfucker. But good news: ignorance can be fixed.

[-] glimse@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago

Ignorant, sure, but he's not stupid. Flouride in water is not for people like him who already take great care of their teeth - it's for people who don't.

It's not stupid to avoid consuming something that doesn't benefit you. Like I know lithium is used safely to treat bipolar but I don't have bipolar so I wouldn't be stupid for wanting it filtered out. Like I said, he doesn't advocate for its removal - he just doesn't want to drink it himself

[-] DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 6 points 6 months ago

You ever hear the joke about an American tourist only drinking alcohol on a trip to Mexico, because you can't trust the water, and then someone asking them where they got their ice cubes?

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

On the other hand, at least back when I was there as an American teenager in the 90s, avoiding the water in Mexico was a good plan.

Parents: It's okay to drink the water in this town, we drove past a water treatment plant.

Me: Absolutely no way.

Guess who didn't regret saying "absolutely no way?"

[-] glimse@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago
[-] DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 3 points 6 months ago

Well, the thing about your friend is that even if he were only drinking boiled well water or whatever, he's still consuming plenty of the metaphorical ice cubes.

I'd say that's the only real point the anti-flouridation crowd has, really. Even if they want to opt out, they can't. Even if their local water utility stops flouridation, anything shipped in will still have it, be it bottled water, frozen meals, anything that uses tap water in production, really.

[-] skeezix@lemmy.world -2 points 6 months ago

The alcohol kills the microbes in the melting ice cubes. So it’s not a problem. Also, if you drink the kind of alcoholic beverages that require ice cubes you probably deserve the shits.

[-] SeaJ@lemm.ee 6 points 6 months ago

There is non fluoridated toothpaste. Not that I would use it but it does exist.

[-] Lowpast@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Consider he might use unfluoridated toothpaste?

Toxicity does exist and is studied: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5805681/

[-] Jimmyeatsausage@lemmy.world 12 points 6 months ago

You would kill yourself drinking too much water long before you'd have to worry about fluoride toxicity in the US. Part of our water treatment protocols also include reducing fluoride levels when they're naturally too high.

[-] undercrust@lemmy.ca 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Dude, that's for the odds someone might have hypothyroidism, not at all related to toxicity.

And as noted by the authors:

"Hence, the application of standard household water purification (such as reversed osmosis, electro dialysis, activated carbon filter, and other adsorption/ion-exchange methods) is recommended for patients with hypothyroidism since they have a higher consumption of drinking water. The purification systems can help remove fluoride that interferes with thyroid functions."

So, if you have a family history of hypothyroidism, and you care at all about trying to avoid this incredibly common and easily treatable issue; use a water filter. It probably won't help since family history and regular exercise are much more highly correlated with the incidence of hypothyroidism, but sure, why not.

Also, and this is fun, they conveniently ignore the fact that the people drinking the most water (5+ cups group) have a lower adjusted-odds-ratio (OR) of hypothyroidism.

How about the part where the level of fluoride in the water being in the higher end of the spectrum (0.3-0.5 mg/L) gives you a *checks notes* oh yeah, 3.4% higher incidence rate of hypothyroidism. Right.

this post was submitted on 08 May 2024
343 points (95.3% liked)

News

23263 readers
3828 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS